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BT: Kathryn, I'm going to ask you a question here. I'm sorry. I'll do this from time to time. But I'm kind of curious, how did you go from the board to becoming president?

KB: I think, I actually can't explain that. I think what happened was, the board was -- I'm going to be -- I was going to talk a little bit at some point in time about the Japanese Canadian project. And so what happened was -- and I'm assuming this was part of it -- was that first of all, the board was very open to people just stepping up and saying, "I have an idea. I think we should be doing X." And the board would say, if it was a reasonable idea and fell within the purview of the types of community programs that the chapter was involved in, saw a need for, or civil rights or social justice-oriented, the chapter would say yes. So it had this very broad scope at that time, I think because among other things, a lot of other -- a lot of Nikkei, other Nikkei organizations were -- had not yet been established. Like I think even like the idea of a cultural center was a committee of the Seattle chapter. So I kind of wonder if part of it is that I got active in committees, people had a chance to see me engaged in board meetings. And then I also headed a project of the Seattle chapter called the Japanese Canadian project. I'm just kind of wondering whether people just felt well, maybe I would be a suitable person to run, be on a slate of officers. And I believe at that time, we had, like, at least three vice presidents. I think we had maybe a president-elect. And so you just kind of got on this track and then you were likely eventually president. I don't know that it always worked that way, but it seems to me that I probably served as an officer at least one year before, before I was president. I thought it was really extraordinary that this active chapter with Nisei -- who were very much still in their prime, I think many were still in their fifties, were professionally really quite prominent and active -- had devoted a lot of their life and passion to, for example, the redress movement, and bringing that to fruition, would say to a Sansei, "We think you're the right person to lead this chapter." And I never asked anyone, "Why me?" But I think I was too young to... I was like, when I became president, I was thirty-one years old. I think I was too young to kind of appreciate that if you're in your fifties and you've devoted your life to an organization that's really quite profound, to then say, we have enough confidence in the Sansei to turn over the reins of leadership, knowing that there's bound to be some failures and disappointments along the way. And I think for those of us who are still involved -- for those who are involved in the community, looking at the Yonsei, I think we can kind of appreciate what that means, to step aside. They didn't really step aside in the sense that they remained active, but they were interested in developing leadership, I think, and they were supportive. And they were fine with not being the spokesperson at the national convention, for example.

BT: Thank you very much. I mean, that, because that gets back to Elaine's question about potential barriers, because a lot of folks think of JACL, especially a couple -- twenty years ago maybe -- as being male dominated, being Nisei dominated, and it sounds like your experience with the Seattle chapter, bringing in youth, bringing in women, bringing in and accepting outsiders being from non-Seattle, you didn't experience any of these issues at all. You had environmental acceptance, is that fair to say?

KB: I was a true outsider [Laughs]. I really was. You know, I walked into Mitch's store in 1978, and Mitch didn't know me from anyone. And we had a conversation and Don and Mitch said, "Come to our board meetings, see what's going on, we welcome your being involved, join a committee." I think that is an ideal. And I think what we all hope for are vibrant organizations that will see their worthwhile mission carried forward with the same – with values that are relevant, but hopefully values that are also consistent. And so I lobbed the Seattle chapter for, at the beginning, at least during, while I was there, saying, we're gonna actually set aside a third of our board positions or whatever that percentage was, for Sansei. I've never heard of an organization that has taken that approach. But I think that made a big difference. In fact, I told -- I saw Tomio Moriguchi at a Japan Council meeting in Seattle years ago. And I said to him, as I watched Yonsei step onto the podium,  Seattle Yonsei step on to the podium. I said, "I think this is the fruit of all of that foresight and inspiration."

EK: Yeah, thank you, Kathryn.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.